Saturday, February 03, 2007

Wow - well, after 5 years of this blog, Blogger forced me to switch to beta - it told me I could skip the switch prompt one time only, and I figured what the hay and took the plunge. Amazingly - it looks like my crap made the leap with me so YAY! Especially my links to you sexy, sexy people - I'd hate to lose touch with you, and I'm too lazy/busy/glamorous to woodshed settings a la cut-n-paste mode.

Unburden mode

Today there was a different teacher at my real estate class, and I'll have him again next weekend. I think most people preferred him to the teacher from last week, but her style worked better with my learning challenges. This instructor was jovial and seemed a nice guy, but regardless his opinion, I could stand to have an entire day in a classroom without a man standing up and telegraphing his political views to all and sundry. Stick to the curriculum. As it was, we barely got out after 10.5 hours in the classroom - I honestly thought he was going to make us stay late. I'm sure all that is in the spirit of getting everyone out in time to see that big horse race tomorrow, but still - exhaustion!

I'm no dimwit, academically, but those mnemonic devices just have the effect of scrambling my brain. I marvel that most of the rest of the class seemed to welcome these little helpful things, but tell me these memory devices divorced from an explanation of the nuts and bolts of what the purpose for the words are, and you might as well be teaching me in dog-, or chicken-ese - does not compute.

The teacher last week did a fantastic breeze-through of each chapter, focusing on the most salient bits, then on to the review questions and finally to the quiz at the end of chapter. This teacher today simply started on the review with no overview so now we can answer questions, but we really don't have an understanding of the function of these important principles.

What the teacher taught us last week I couldn't have done so well on my own - I found myself feeling well pleased I'd not opted for the computer correspondence-style training. However, what I'm learning this weekend I could do myself as well at home and in a fraction of the time. Grrr.

5 comments:

FHB said...

Sounds like the recent guy didn't bother to read what he was supposed to teach and was just wingin' it. Seen that done before. Done it myself in a pinch. Interesting how you can easily tell the difference between a good teacher and a crappy one, eh?

Anonymous said...

After seeing you had switched to Beta I did it with my "abandoned" blogger blog. Went ok except the banner at the top returned. I doubt if I will use it again, though. There were a couple of days last week when blogger was having a hissy fit and I couldn't get to any of the blogs. I haven't caught Wordpress having a hissy yet. Doesn't mean anything except that I haven't caught it LOL

I do like the format options for photos on Blogger better than the straight upload on Wordpress. Guess I could learn the HTML, huh?

Anonymous said...

I struggled with that same question about online vs. incourse instruction - and it's clear that these instructors are important to your experience and ability to benefit. In general, I find that the social interaction and routine is more supportive overall than the isolation of on line
(I took several real estate courses on line and I am now taking University courses in class). Hope things improve!

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

You'll lose your template if you take the second step...like me.

Thanks for calling me sexy!

Barbara Bruederlin said...

I'm so glad you were able to make the switch unscathed. I managed to survive as well, but I know some others who lost valuable bits of themselves in the process. We are survivors.